One person was on Thursday killed in a clash between Dera Sacha Sauda followers and Sikhs near Sunam in Sangrur district as tension mounted in Punjab after Sikh high priests called for a social boycott of the controversial religious group for allegedly insulting Guru Gobind Singh.

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One person was on Thursday killed in a clash between Dera Sacha Sauda followers and Sikhs near Sunam in Sangrur district as tension mounted in Punjab after Sikh high priests called for a social boycott of the controversial religious group for allegedly insulting Guru Gobind Singh.

At least 22 people were injured in sporadic incidents of violence -- most of them attacks on Dera properties by Sikh protestors even as thousands of Sikhs laid siege to a Dera ashram in Salabatpura in Bhatinda district.
The Centre rushed paramilitary forces to Punjab and Sirsa in Haryana, where the Dera, which claims to have Sikh, Hindu and Muslim followers, has its headquarters. Its spokesman issued a veiled threat tonight that the Dera's supporters could not be kept in check if attacks on them in Punjab were not stopped.

Five high priests, who met at Talwandi Sabo Gurdwara near Bhatinda, gave the Punjab government time till May 20 to act against the Dera for its 'anti-Sikh activities.' After this period, Sikhs would be 'forced to act against the Dera,' they warned.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee, the apex religious body of Sikhs, was authorised to check activities of the Dera and its followers in Punjab.

Sikhs returning from the meeting at Talwandi Sabo allegedly damaged the boundary wall of a Dera property in Maur Mandi in Bhatinda district. No one was injured in the incident, ADGP (law and order) B Chandershekhar told PTI.

In Mansa, a chowk named after the Dera was demolished while a large number of Sikhs attacked a Dera property at Sunam in Sangrur district. Some persons were injured in this incident but no one was seriously hurt, he said.

Large numbers of Dera followers and Sikhs also came face to face near Salabatpur in Bhatinda district and police were present in strength to control the situation, he said.
Punjab police denied having issued any instructions for the vacation of Dera ashrams, a claim made by the group. Chandershekhar described reports on this issue on TV channels as a 'misinformation campaign' and said no such orders had been issued.

Police were taking steps to ensure the safety of a large number of Dera properties in the state, he said.
Dera head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh sparked a controversy by purportedly appearing in the attire of the 10th Sikh guru in an advertisement in some newspapers. Dera followers and Sikhs have clashed in Punjab, Rajasthan and New Delhi over the past three days.

Parts of Punjab and Haryana continued to be tense for the fourth day on Thursday due to the stand-off between Sikhs and Dera followers even as the government advised the governments of these two states and Rajasthan to keep security forces on alert.

Sikh protestors organised marches at several places, including Patiala, Karnal and Yamuna Nagar, and a partial bandh was observed in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. The shutdown was complete in the walled city around the Golden Temple.

Leaders of the Dera, after a meeting held at headquarters at Sirsa in Haryana, expressed anguish at the call for a social boycott issued by the Sikh priests and said the move will divide society.

The Sikh high priests, who met under the chairmanship of the Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Joginder Singh Vedanti, finalised a five-point 'hukamnama' (edict). Following protests from a section of the large gathering of Sikhs, Jathedar of Takht Damdama Sahab, Balwant Singh Nandgarh, announced that the body had decided to give the state government an ultimatum to arrest the Dera chief by May 20 and to lock the Dera properties across Punjab.

Earlier at Talwandi Sabo when Vedanti read out the decisions, the Sikh gathering armed with weapons, including swords, started accusing the Takht chiefs of giving decisions mouthed by Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal.

Some among the crowd went wild and raised slogans against the decision. One of the followers of Damdami Taksal even threw a sword on Vedanti when he tried to come out of the stage. The sword, however, missed the mark.

In the border district of Gurdaspur, the AISSF took out a protest march in Batala and forced shopkeepers to close down their shutters and they held a demonstration in Gandhi Chowk.

Sikhs also protested against the Dera head in Lucknow with hundreds taking out a procession from Alambagh and later burning his effigy.
Police had to resort to baton-charge and fire in the air as hundreds of devotees returning from Talwandi Sabo attacked the Nam Charcha premises of Dera near Sunam.

According to unofficial sources, about nine persons were injured in the melee out of which four were referred to Rajindra Hospital Patiala in a serious condition.

Effigies of the Dera head were also burnt at Malerkotla, Barnala and village Bhalwan by various Akali outfits.
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What is Dera Sacha Sauda?...never heard of this group before....are they Hindus or Sikhs?

My punjabi colleague mentioned about this outburst of violence.

This Dera Sacha Sauda religious group have their own set of followers in Punjab. Sikhs firmly believe Guru Gobind Singh as the last Guru of Sikhism. In a campaign lately this Dera guy appeared as Guru Gobind Singh in posters & advertisements all over. He posed like him & even his attire resembled the last guru of Sikhism.

This infuriated many orthodox Sikhs, who accused him of insulting Guru Gobind Singh. This has now lead to protests & violence all across the state.

This is nothing but another kangress led unrest policy in Punjab, this dera baba, gurmeet ram rahim singh is just another dhongi who is politically backed up well by our great kangressi leaders. This baba ji is doing all this because a CBI enquiry is up to him (there are even sexuall charges against him) and kangress want to hit back at Badal sarkar, and this baba is a close associate of kangress as he made them win 27 seats in the last punjab elections, so a simple yet far sighted calculated move whose after effects we will see for a long time. This is just another Nirankari movment type (remember 1978), and Sikhs are again soft target.

If someone can post a properly formatted headline with all the latest updates then I would like to see this topic in Breaking News. I saw the reports on ZEE News last night and this babaji was like - "HUmara to pyaar ka sandesh hai". The moment he said it and the way he said it made him look like some charlatan. It seems he has insulted Guru Gobind Singh publicly.

Anyway, this is bad and I hope our Sikh brothers in Pubjab dont fall prey to this nonsense.

There are so many such idiotic cults in India. Two days ago, I never heard of Dera soda sucka. And now some shittyass guy said something and we pick up swords and stones.

Question is - are we so fragile that any nincompoop says something bad and we get all riled up? We seem to be unable to control our rage and resolve disputes in a legal fashion.

Is this a sign of things getting worse?

You all will see very soon where this dera row will get into, this baba propogates himself as a sacha sewak of insaniyat and the followers of baba uses "insa" as their surname like samir insa, falaana insa, dhimka insa etc etc., but this baba is such a dhongi, that instead of doing anything to make this matter peaceful, he thru his spoksepersons, were telling openly in media ".....out of 2.5 crore janta of punjab our premis are 50 lakhs and those people are 2.25 crore in India but we have 3 crores followers......"
what does this exactly means, where is insaaniyat and all bullshit these people are talking about. I have seen whole of the yesterday on all the media channels, the way the media was manipulated by these cults was amazing and was showing the bias standards of our media which is always political parties led and there was a brigade of 20-25 young girls who were (sweet and sexy) showing their drama skills at their best and also one can see the more the beautiful the girl at dera the more hyrarchy level she got there.